away to Europe, to acquire
the learning of the brothels of Paris. And then he came home and struck
the Tenderloin; and at three o'clock one morning he walked through a
plate-glass window, and so the newspapers took him up. That had
suddenly opened a new vista in life for Charlie--he became a devotee of
fame; everywhere he went he was followed by newspaper reporters and a
staring crowd. He carried wads as big round as his arm, and gave away
hundred-dollar tips to bootblacks, and lost forty thousand dollars in a
game of poker. He gave a fete to the demi-monde, with a jewelled
Christmas tree in midsummer, and fifty thousand dollars' worth of
splendour. But the greatest stroke of all was the announcement that he
was going to build a submarine yacht and fill it with
chorus-girls!--Now Charlie had sunk out of public attention, and his
friends would not see him for days; he would be lying in a "sporting
house" literally wallowing in champagne.

And all this, Montague realized, his brother must have known! And he
had said not a word about it--because of the eight or ten millions
which Charlie would have when he was twenty-five!

CHAPTER IX

In the morning they went home with others of the party by train. They
could not wait for Charlie and his automobile, because Monday was the
opening night of the Opera, and no one could miss that. Here Society
would appear in its most gorgeous raiment, and, there would be a show
of jewellery such as could be seen nowhere else in the world.

General Prentice and his wife had opened their town-house, and had
invited them to dinner and to share their box; and so at about
half-past nine o'clock Montague found himself seated in a great balcony
of the shape of a horseshoe, with several hundred of the richest people
in the city. There was another tier of boxes above, and three galleries
above that, and a thousand or more people seated and standing below
him. Upon the big stage there was an elaborate and showy play, the
words of which were sung to the accompaniment of an orchestra.

Now Montague had never heard an opera, and he was fond of music. The
second act had just begun when he came in, and all through it he sat
quite spellbound, listening to the most ravishing strains that ever he
had heard in his life. He scarcely noticed that Mrs. Prentice was
spending her time studying the occupants of the other boxes through a
jewelled lorgnette, or that Oliver was chattering to her daughter.